The corridor leading to the highest tower of the Aurelion Royal Palace in the capital of Coreheim stretched endlessly. Magical torches flickered on the stone walls, casting a cold blue light that illuminated Eric's solitary shadow stretching across the marble floor.
He walked. The sound of his iron boots striking the ground created a monotonous, soulless rhythm.
His body was exhausted. The injuries from his fall into the underground vault still throbbed with a dull pain. But worse than the physical agony was the emptiness in his mind. He had just let the enemy escape. No—he had allowed the enemy to go free. A silent betrayal clung to his knightly conscience like a parasite.
Eric stopped before the ebony doors carved with dragon heads—the entrance to the Emperor's bedchamber.
He raised his hand to knock.
Thump... thump...
The sounds echoing from within made his hand freeze in mid-air.
The noise was unmistakable. The wet sound of flesh meeting flesh. The suppressed, heavy gasps for air. The creaking of the wooden bed under a violent force.
Valerius was "relaxing."
Normally, Eric would feel disgusted. He would frown, turn away, and wait for his brother's storm of lust to pass with silent contempt.
But tonight was different.
The moans drifting through the door were like a match thrown into dry hay. Eric shuddered. An irrational, burning heat surged from his lower belly to his chest. He held his breath, his gauntleted hand unconsciously gripping the hilt of his sword.
He was hard.
Inside the rough cloth beneath his heavy armor, his loins were swollen and aching. He cursed himself. It was sick. He was standing there, eavesdropping on his brother's pleasure, reacting like an animal in heat.
Eric closed his eyes, leaning his forehead against the cold wooden door.
In his mind, there was no image of Valerius or any woman. There was only the darkness of the ruined cathedral. Only the pale, sweat-slicked skin of Sinhara Veylan. He remembered the feeling of pressing that slender body down onto the stone altar. The friction. The burning tightness that surrounded him. The provocative dark eyes staring at him even as the boy trembled with pleasure.
The moans inside the room rose again, high and full of pain.
Eric bit his lip. The lingering excitement from the night before had not yet faded. It hid in his blood, waiting for the slightest spark to explode. He wanted to smash this door. He wanted to return to the cathedral. He wanted to pin Sinhara down once more to extinguish this mad fire burning his logic.
"Hah..."
Eric exhaled, trying to steady his racing heart. He used pain to suppress his desire, digging his fingers into the wound on his left shoulder. The sharp sting helped him regain a bit of focus.
He was a Silver Knight. He was not a slave to the flesh.
Eric adjusted his armor, took a deep breath of the hallway's musty air, and pushed the door open.
CRASH.
The door swung wide. The heavy scent of musk and magical opium hit his nose.
Under the dim light of artificial stars rotating on the ceiling, Valerius, the Emperor of Aurelion, was pinning a naked body onto a pile of white furs.
The person beneath him had the form of a stunning woman with flowing, fiery red hair. She was thrashing, her nails clawing at Valerius's bare, sweaty back.
"Change!" Valerius roared, his voice thick and hoarse, his fingers tightening around his lover's throat.
Eric stood frozen at the threshold, witnessing the bizarre scene.
The woman beneath let out a choked cry. Her eyes rolled back, turning a glowing violet. Her smooth white skin began to ripple like disturbed water. Her full chest flattened. Her hips narrowed. Soft curves broke and twisted.
In a single breath, the beautiful woman vanished. In her place was the thin, bony body of a man.
Veadran Noct. The Empire's strategist.
"Return to your true form!" Valerius commanded, slapping Veadran's half-transformed face.
The magic-filled slap made Veadran flinch. The illusion shattered completely. Valerius pushed one last time, brutal and cruel, venting all his lust into Veadran's actual male body.
The Emperor withdrew, gasping for air. He kicked Veadran off the bed like a stray dog.
"Clean it up. You're staining my furs."
Veadran lay on the cold floor, blood leaking from the corner of his mouth. He struggled to sit up, his naked body covered in bruises and bite marks. Yet, a sick, satisfied smile appeared on his thin face. He licked the blood from his lips, his violet eyes shining with fake submission.
Valerius reached for a black robe, turning to look at the intruder. He showed no shame or surprise.
"You always know how to pick your timing, you useless little brother," Valerius stepped off the bed, his bare feet treading on the velvet carpet. He walked to the wine cabinet and poured a glass of dark red wine. "Look at you. Smelly. Filthy."
Veadran giggled. He grabbed a thin silk robe to cover his battered skin. He approached Eric, walking gracefully like a cat despite his recent ordeal.
"The Silver Knight looks... tense," Veadran whispered, his voice slithering into Eric's ear. He sniffed the air, his nostrils flaring. "Hmm... the smell of blood, mud... and arousal? You were blushing before you even entered, Knight. Did you also have an interesting night?"
Eric glared at Veadran. His hand gripped his sword so hard his knuckles turned white. This freak could smell his excitement.
"Shut up, you hermaphrodite," Eric growled, trying to ignore the heat spreading across his face. He turned to Valerius, dropping to one knee on the cold floor. A damn ritual.
"I have come to report on the Mirrakyn mission."
"Speak," Valerius sipped his wine, looking bored out the window.
"Sinhara Veylan is dead."
The lie came out dry and short.
The air in the room seemed to freeze. Veadran stopped laughing. Valerius held his wine glass still at his lips.
"Dead?" the Emperor repeated softly.
"He detonated an alchemical suicide bomb," Eric continued, staring at the stone floor to avoid his brother's searching gaze. "Both he and the container fell into the Western Abyss of the metal factory. I tried to catch him, but the ground collapsed too fast."
Valerius slammed the glass onto the table. Crack. The base of the glass shattered.
He walked over to Eric. Using his bare toes, he lifted Eric's chin, forcing him to look up.
Valerius's ash-gray eyes were as cold as eternal ice, a total contrast to the heat of his recent pleasure.
"Do you think I am a fool, Eric?"
Valerius mocked him, pressing his toe against Eric's moving Adam's apple.
"The Veylan bloodline is famous for having heads full of schemes. They live as long as cockroaches. His grandmother, that old woman Sil, tricked our father for twenty years. And you're telling me her grandson committed suicide out of fear?"
He kicked Eric's chest plate hard, making him stumble back.
"I don't give a damn if that brat lives or dies. I care about the stone. Without that stone, this Empire will collapse before I can become a God."
Valerius snapped his fingers.
Veadran understood. He flicked his silk sleeve. A purple smoke rose in the center of the room, forming a vivid illusion.
Eric held his breath.
Inside the illusion was a damp, narrow basement filled with tubes of green liquid. In the center, a thin old woman with hair as white as frost was tied to a metal chair. Her head was covered in wires connected to a strange machine that hummed loudly.
Lady Sil. Sinhara's grandmother.
Her face was wrinkled and twisted in pain. Streams of blue light were being pulled from her temples into the machine.
"She is still quite useful," Veadran said with delight, walking around Eric. "I am slowly extracting her memories. Military strategies, secrets of the 12 Constellations... but the old hag is stubborn. She has sealed her memories very well."
"If Sinhara is truly dead and took the stone to hell," Valerius said, his voice as cruel as a dull blade cutting through skin, "then this woman is worthless as a hostage. I'll have Veadran crush her brain tonight to take the last remaining fragments."
Eric's heart skipped a beat. He remembered Sinhara's eyes. She is the only reason I haven't left this kingdom.
"Wait!" Eric stood up, forgetting all protocol.
Valerius raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Do you feel pity?"
"I... need to confirm the body," Eric said quickly, cold sweat running down his spine. "If he isn't dead, he will come back for her. Keeping her alive is the best trap. If we kill her now, we lose everything."
Valerius stared at Eric. He narrowed his eyes, as if deciding whether to believe his dull-witted brother or his own intuition.
"Fine," Valerius waved his hand. The illusion vanished. "I give you three days. Bring the stone back here. Or bring that brat's head. After three days, you will be the one to pull the lever on the brain-crushing machine for that old woman Sil."
He turned away, walking toward Veadran, and began to slide his hand into the strategist's robe, roughly grabbing him in front of Eric.
"Get out. You're making my room smell."
Eric turned. He walked out of the room as if escaping.
The door slammed shut. He leaned his back against the stone wall, gasping for air. The strange arousal from earlier was gone, replaced by a freezing fear.
He removed his iron gauntlet and took out the crumpled paper Sinhara had given him.
There was only a rough drawing of a scale and a single name.
Elystria.
The Sea City in the far East.
No coordinates. No meeting point. Only the name of the largest and most chaotic city on the continent. Sinhara had thrown him a puzzle in the middle of a vast sea of people.
Eric gripped the paper tight and walked toward the stables. He had to leave tonight. He had to reach Elystria and tear the city apart to find Sinhara.
And because of the insane longing rising in his heart.